seafarin' novels, yaaarrr or naaarrr

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I've nearly finished the first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, Master and Commander, and it's completely brilliant! Page-turning rollicking storyline, well-developed characters and character relationships, and stunning attention to the details of seafaring in the Napoleonic era. I now feel I know my stuns'l from my tops'l, and more besides.

Anyone else read these? Do you like reading about THE SEA (she be a harsh mistress)? What books about the sea do you like? Do you find that your topgallantmast is better stayed for'ard the jib-boom or the bowsprit?

― rener (rener), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 10:00 (twenty-two years ago)

come on, you just wanted to write that title.

― j0e (j0e), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 10:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think she attempted to hide that at all.

I dunno about the O'Brian books, but ships-at-war stories are brilliant, if terrifying ("Today, Ensign Jones' hands froze solid and snapped off. Again").

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

andrew, if you like TERRIFYING SEA STORIES read Heart Of The Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. Warning: it is terrifying.

Life of Pi counts as a seafaring story too. As does The Perfect Storm.

i have yet to read Batavia's Graveyard, the story of the bloodiest mutiny ever, but it's supposed to be top.

― rener (rener), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

what are the Hornblower books like? I notice that the Aubrey-Maturin books are now so popular that no one describes them as the best seafaring books since Hornblower.

why have I never seen "Das Boot"?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Moby Dick ROXXX!

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Honourable mention to Voyage of the Dawn Treader as one of the better Narnia books, although I still think CS Lewis should have stuck to non-fiction.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Seconding Archel there (in general, actually).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

the Narnia books RoXoR, U R atheist.

I read Voyage of the Dawn Treader WAY after all the others. my library didn't have that one, you see, so I ended up having to buy it. and yes, it is G*R*A*T*E.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I *do* like them but I can't love them.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

There is just some really uninspired descriptive writing in them, even in Dawn Treader, and when you compare them to say, Screwtape, you wonder what's going on...

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:49 (twenty-two years ago)

There was a book I really loved as a child called The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

CAPTAIN SLAUGHTERBOARD DROPS ANCHOR!!

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, but what's great about Screwtape is its novelly stuff - all those demons having fites and politics and so on.

back to the sea: isn't "High Wind To Jamaica" meant to be great? Pirates and creepy children, what's not to like.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Novelly but FUNNY. Why isn't Narnia funnier?

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:11 (twenty-two years ago)

CAPTAIN SLAUGHTERBOARD DROPS ANCHOR!!

Mervyn Peake roolz OK.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Captain Slaughterboard ~~hurrah~~ARRRRR!

Also Moby Dick roXor, obv.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 14:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Joseph Conrad is the king of seafaring novels, but I'd also highly recommend William Golding's trilogy.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Do not neglect non-fiction books about seafaring. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana is a classic. THE SEA figures in a lot of nineteeth century books as a familiar facet of normal life. Later, in the twentieth century, a note of nostalgia starts to dominate, so the handling of the subject gets bollocky.

― Aimless, Wednesday, 13 August 2003 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Treasure Island
Robinson Crusoe (though maybe not strictly seafaring)
Mr Midshipman Easy
Sinbad the Sailor
And I have heard that The Odessey is pretty good, but haven't read it myself

― isadora (isadora), Thursday, 14 August 2003 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I read Charlotte Doyle until it practically fell apart; a friend read it until it actually did. Awesome book. I just read a book called "A Viking Voyage" about this guy who wanted to go around in a knarr and eventually did, it was pretty cool but not about sailing that much. "She-Captains" has an awful title but it's a pretty great book for a historical overview.

Bought a copy of "Two Years Before the Mast" but haven't read it yet; I like this thread in terms of recommendations because it feeds one of my growing obsessions.

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 14 August 2003 00:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Fairly good modern Alaska fishing non-fiction: Working on the Edge by Spike Walker.

― lyra (lyra), Thursday, 14 August 2003 00:55 (twenty-two years ago)

aimless: yeah, i probably should have titled this thread "seafarin' BOOKS, yaaarrr or naaarrr". nonfiction about the sea ROXX, yes. best sea-related nonfiction i've read recently is In The Heart of The Sea, based on the account of the wreck of the whaleship Essex in 1820 -- it was attacked by an angry whale, which is just one of many great things about the story.

maria: i seem to have the same obsession at the moment -- and i'm also happy to have recommendations of more stuff to read. hooray!

― rener (rener), Thursday, 14 August 2003 08:24 (twenty-two years ago)

so, has anyone read the RAMAGE books?

― rener (rener), Thursday, 14 August 2003 08:25 (twenty-two years ago)

apparently they are comparable to Forester at his best.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 14 August 2003 10:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Moominpapa at Sea was a favourite of my childhood.

Just read Heart of Darkness on the bus this morning (more riverfarin' than seafarin').

Shackleton's improvised trip to South Georgia via Elephant Island is a good read too. And factual to boot.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 14 August 2003 10:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I should also mention John Barth here, for Sabbatical and Tidewater Tales (sailing around Chesapeak Bay) and The Last Voyage Of Somebody The Sailor (Sinbad related).

Also, and I can't believe none of us have mentioned this yet, Homer's Odyssey!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 15 August 2003 10:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Isadora mentioned it just up there ^. It does rock. I particularly like the bit where Odysseus washes up naked and Nausicaa gets all hot and bothered.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 15 August 2003 11:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Can anybody recommend books about scruffy little coasters and freighters plying their trade from port to port c. 1920-1980 (and their crews being involved in fraud and suchlike). Perhaps a bit like the '50s film about a ship's crew docking in London and one of them getting involved in a jewel robbery (although that film has no actual sea-voyaging in it). I'd prefer slightly humdrum with plenty of nautical description over exaggerated high adventure.

― David (David), Friday, 15 August 2003 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I heartily recommend, arr, "Nightbirds on Nantucket" by Joan Aiken. Arr.

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 15 August 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Read Death Ship by B. Traven, if only because it turns sea-sentimentality on its head and has a wonderful, Dante's Inferno quality at times. At other times it wanders off into a preachy socialist tract - a fault I forgave, but feel I must mention.

― Aimless, Friday, 15 August 2003 15:57 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a really interesting (nonfiction) book about the relief of Dunkirk but I can't remember what it's called.

― isadora (isadora), Friday, 15 August 2003 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

There are several god books available about the Whale-Ship Essex, which was the inspiration for Moby Dick.

And I heartily second Nightbirds on Nantucket and other Aiken books in the same line.

Have you read any of Thor Heyerdahl's works?

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Saturday, 16 August 2003 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

You want William Hope Hodgson for GOFF seafaring novels inc WEED MENG and rescuing of weedy birds from ships (the boats of the glen carrig?? can't quite recall). Also see GHOST PIRATES!! Wot may the threat be in that novel eh?

But for the love of grog, don't read the NIGHT LAND. No poirtaz at all. Chiz chiz.

― Sarah (starry), Saturday, 16 August 2003 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

thor heyerdahl: visionary, nitwit or LEGENDARY NORSE GOD?!?!

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 16 August 2003 13:51 (twenty-two years ago)

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